


When We Talk

by perpetualjoy (optijoy)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 06:37:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10588458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/optijoy/pseuds/perpetualjoy
Summary: Lúcio and Symmetra do Overwatch missions together. Seeing this as an opportunity, the Vishkar Corporation orders her to recover the sonic technology  Lúcio has stolen from them. Because of this, the two start talking more and realize they don’t hate each other as much as they expected to. One-shot.





	

**Author's Note:**

> If I had the time and the patience, I would write a 100 page slowburn fic that investigates all the parallels of their lives and their interactions. But here’s an quick, unbetaed fic for your enjoyment now. This was originally written before Symm's rework and posted on Tumblr, so it still references her individual shields, not her shield generator.

“We’d like you to start doing missions for Overwatch. It’s gaining credibility, and to be frank, after the fiasco in Brazil, our corporation’s reputation has been suffering,” Symmetra’s superior says, not even bothering to look at his best agent.

“Understood.”

However, Symmetra only begrudgingly joins Overwatch missions. She notices how everyone is a little on edge around her. She’s straightforward and focused and serious. Unlike the Overwatch team members who seem to revel in jokes and banter.

She once fashioned a bunny out of nothing but light for D.va and presented it to the mech pilot without saying a word, but that was the one and only time she did anything outside of mission parameters. D.va is, after all, the only person who even bothered to ask Symmetra anything about her work as an architect. (The professional gamer thought that hard-light constructs were “really cool.”)

Worldwide music sensation, Lúcio Correia dos Santos, also occasionally does jobs for Overwatch. His modified Vishkar sonic technology boosts morale and also heals wounds sustained in battle. He’ll gladly sign autographs for anyone who asks; he lightens up any dreary mission with some dance moves or a joke. Everyone loves being around him.

Symmetra can’t understand this magnetism. First of all, he is a thief. Second of all, his mascot looks like the grotesque bastard child of a monkey and a frog. Finally, he never seemed to take any mission seriously, but still managed to be one of the most effective drop-in members of the team. This, for reasons she can’t quite explain, infuriates her.

* * *

“We understand you occasionally work with Lúcio Correia dos Santos,” Symmetra’s superior says, staring at a holoscreen instead of her.

“That is correct.”

“We’d like you to retrieve what he’s stolen from us.”

“Gladly.” Justice should prevail, after all. The world works in a certain way, and Lúcio threw a cog into that when he stole technology from her corporation. And the rest of the world supports him–no, celebrates him–instead of seeing him as the criminal he truly is.

Symmetra is suddenly always around him. Her excuse is always the same: “Your shields need to be replenished.”

Anyone who dared to offer some kind of criticism about her shields were hit with a 10 minute lecture about their efficiency and self-healing properties, so this was obviously a lie.

They eventually begin talking because she’s always around him anyway, and the silence is now too much for Lúcio to bear. Somehow, the conversations always steer toward Vishkar.

Symmetra insists Vishkar only wants to make a perfect world. Lúcio wonders aloud why she thinks his favela wasn’t perfect.

“It was filthy and dangerous,” Symmetra said. “Any of those buildings could collapse at a moment’s notice.”

“It was vibrant, full of life. I loved it.”

“That is ludicrous. Vishkar wants a better world. Every city should be like Utopaea.”

“Utopaea is sterile and lifeless.”

She waves her hands in a gentle formation and creates a perfectly-formed white sphere in front of her. She hands it to Lúcio without saying a word.

* * *

The topic of their conversations eventually moves beyond this particular argument. None to soon, as the rest of the Overwatch team was tiring of it. Lúcio begins to ask questions about her hard-light constructs and her corporation and how she manages to keep her hair so inhumanly glossy and gorgeous.

She tries to tease him, and once says that the only reason he wears skates is to mask his short height.

He doesn’t talk to her for the rest of the mission, and this somehow causes an unfamiliar ache in her stomach. She apologizes with, “You are silly to believe I care more about your height than the fact that you brazenly skate around me with technology stolen from my company.”

He answers, “What? D.va needed some help on the front lines today. Had to keep the music turned up for her!” He playfully does a little jig on his skates and winks at her.

The unfamiliar ache in her stomach immediately dissolves and is replaced with an overwhelming feeling of warmth. _Peculiar_ , she thinks to herself.

* * *

One night, while they are camped out by a teleporter placed in a long corridor at King Row’s in order to protect it, their conversation turns personal. For the first time in her life, Symmetra recounts the circumstances of her youth to someone outside of the Vishkar Corporation. She talks of being chosen by the Architect Academy and trained day and night by herself. How she lacked the ability to make friends, but that was okay, because she served a higher purpose. How they named her Symmetra because of the geometric perfection of her constructs.

“They kidnapped you? And then isolated you?” Lúcio asked, brow furrowed.

“Everything Vishkar does is for perfection.”

“I think I like Satya a lot better than Symmetra.”

“They gave me the best education in the world. I was impoverished and would have suffered through my life in the slums if not for the Architect Academy and Vishkar.”

“It sounds like you suffered more than I ever did.”

“I did not suffer at Vishkar. Vishkar is making the world better. It made me better. I can do things I never could without Vishkar.”

“You have no idea how much you’ve lost.” His words, laced with pity, settles on her like an unwanted dusting of fallen snow. She hates snow. It interrupts her when she builds, makes her recalibrate everything or leave her constructs for another day. She hates pity more than she hates the snow.

Symmetra stands. “I do not require your assistance here.”

“I’m–”

“I do not require your assistance here,” she repeats.

Reinhardt’s proclamation of, “I’ll be your shield!” as he bursts through her teleporter does not even make her pause.

“Perhaps Reinhardt will escort you to where your skillset will be better utilized.”

Reinhardt does not notice that the gulf between Lúcio and Symmetra has returned to its original size.

Symmetra does not notice as Lúcio turns to look at her one more time.

* * *

Symmetra avoids the music star by only taking missions while he’s on tour. But she misses him. She will not admit to herself that she misses him, but she does.

It’s not until a month later when Vishkar asks after the progress of her secondary mission re: Vishkar sonic technology that she realizes she’s forgotten her original goal. “Your slow pace on this mission is extremely disappointing, Agent Symmetra,” says her superior. “We expect you will tie up all loose ends, soon.”

“I’m not on speaking terms with the target at this time,” she says.

“Are you quite certain about that?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Her superior adjusts his glasses and nods toward the holoscreen that takes up a whole wall of his office. “This is a clip from tonight’s Lúcio Correia dos Santos’ world tour stop in Numbani.”

The room darkens, and the clip begins to play.

“Yo, thanks everybody!” Lúcio says, waving with both arms to the packed stadium. “I’m so happy to see all of you here!”

The stadium erupts into cheers and applause. The camera takes reaction shots of random audience members. Symmetra spots D.va in her civilian clothes somewhere in the crowd, chomping on Doritos and Mountain Dew.

“But now I’m going to slow it down a bit. This is a new, never before heard song for someone very special. Her name is Satya–”

The pounding of Symmetra’s heart echoes in her ears, and she feels tears. She should be scared or angry or upset, but none of those emotions are the first to burst through. She’s… happy.

The song’s melody is somehow familiar to her. It takes her a few moments to recognize. It’s the one that plays in her soul while she fashions solid objects from air. It races through her veins at every moment, it is a part of her. It is not exactly the same because Lúcio’s flair is there, too, in this melody that he is playing for the world. It’s messier than the one she knows. It’s freer. It is hers and not hers at the same time. How was he able to compose this based on their fragmented meetings, those tiny moments in time that she’d collected like treasures in her memory.

Maybe he did, too.

Symmetra’s superior cuts off the recording.

“He knows your true name. So, would you like to reconsider your lie?”

“It would seem I have a mission with Overwatch to complete.” She crafts a portal that will take her straight to Overwatch headquarters.

“I order you to remain where you are, Agent Symmetra. You are in very serious trouble with this corporation. But we are willing to overlook it if–”

And for the first time in her life, Symmetra disobeys a direct order.


End file.
